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Well, I guess I’m more optimistic than you regarding the timeline. I expect some functionality, if not true FSD, sometime 2019 with continuous improvements after that. But that’s an opinion based on my extrapolated guesstimates.

Legal climate over here is that they’re evaluating it and paying close attention to US policy when doing it. It’s not formally illegal yet, but the person “driving” the vehicle is responsible until new regulations pass, so if FSD arrives tomorrow, you could probably use it, but not blame Tesla if anything happened. Despite the current ambiguity on legal status, we recently passed a test framework that I think resembles the one in California to explicitly allow Volvo to do the same kind of tests that Tesla and others do on public roads.

Regarding climate and wear, I don’t really know what you’re referring to. Cars last just about as long here as anywhere else. Climate where I’m living is not very different from, say, Connecticut. Cars can easily last 20+ years if taken care of. Track record on EV’s obviously not available yet, but aluminium body is helpful.

When I sell the car in 3-5 years, I expect FSD to make a meaningful difference on resale value. If they fail to ship FSD before that and people believe they never will, my bet was wrong. If they do ship it before that, I’ve enjoyed the features and will make some of the money back.

In the unlikely case that they ship FSD and it turns out that AP2.0 cars need hw upgrade that is not offered to anyone who doesn’t already have the FSD package on the due list (as it might cost Tesla a lot to do it), I will be very glad that I didn’t opt out when I had the chance, as I think it will make a huge difference on resale value.

And that’s the case I wanted to hedge.

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Optimism is a good thing and can be hard to come by. As for Connecticut, they salt their roads in winter. Eventually, a car used on those salted roads has a difficult time casting a shadow. Maybe they don't salt the roads in Sweden? Now there's a reason for optimism.
Robin

Optimism is a good thing and can be hard to come by. As for Connecticut, they salt their roads in winter. Eventually, a car used on those salted roads has a difficult time casting a shadow. Maybe they don't salt the roads in Sweden? Now there's a reason for optimism.
Robin

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Unfortunately they do. But cars can still last 20+ years. Most end their days because of mileage/costly repairs that has nothing to do with climate and salt. Just googled it and our average age of cars on the road is right over 10 years. So die hard optimist that I’ll be able to keep the car until FSD is out. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

That cannot possibly be true. How could FSD be a decade plus away when Waymo and Cruise already have level 4 autonomous cars on public roads now? And Tesla has a strong Neural Net that is making great strides and is planning a FSD demo in 3-6 months. I doubt that would be true if FSD were still a decade away. No! I think the evidence points to FSD becoming real in 1-2 years.

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There’s a big difference between FSD at 25 mph in a small city with LIDAR constructed HD maps versus FSD at 80 mph across the entire US without entire coverage of HD maps. Local cities have approved FSD within their cities at low speeds, but when will the federal government approve FSD across the entire US, or all states approve it across the entire state. That’s a big difference to what Waymo and Cruise are doing now. I agree that what Waymo and Cruise are doing is impressive.

There’s a big difference between FSD at 25 mph in a small city with LIDAR constructed HD maps versus FSD at 80 mph across the entire US without entire coverage of HD maps. Local cities have approved FSD within their cities at low speeds, but when will the federal government approve FSD across the entire US, or all states approve it across the entire state. That’s a big difference to what Waymo and Cruise are doing now. I agree that what Waymo and Cruise are doing is impressive.

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Yes, there is a big difference between the two. But considering the progress that Waymo and Cruise have made, it makes me optimistic about FSD. I guess this is a glass half full/half empty kinda argument. You seem to saying "true FSD at 80 mph across entire US without perfect HD maps is a lot harder than what Waymo has done, therefore I think FSD is still many years away.". I look at it as "WOW. If they can do FSD in the city, it proves the concept and it is progress, so we must be closer to true FSD than I thought!"

And there’s the altruistic motivation, too: The more of us paying up front for FSD the more resources Tesla has to make it happen. After all, we gave them $1000 for a Model 3 that didn’t exist yet.

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Technically, we loaned them $1,000 and received an option to buy a really cool car at an unknown date in the future. But as unsecured creditors, that loan could have turned into a "gift" at any point along the way. The money for FSD sounds nonrefundable.

I respect all opinions offered here; it's helped me in my thinking about FSD. I still have time to see what develops before I order. One thing that's unclear to me is: what ALL am I getting with my $5K EAP, and what ADDITIONAL things will I get from pre-paid FSD? The feature set of EAP doesn't seem entirely settled with the vague "future OTA upgrades" promise. Not being entirely certain what EAP consists of makes it harder to judge whether FSD is worth the cost.

what ALL am I getting with my $5K EAP, and what ADDITIONAL things will I get from pre-paid FSD? The feature set of EAP doesn't seem entirely settled with the vague "future OTA upgrades" promise. Not being entirely certain what EAP consists of makes it harder to judge whether FSD is worth the cost.

I'm leaning toward EAP only.

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EAP gives you the following features:
- Traffic Aware Cruise Control (car maintains safe distance from car in front)
- Auto Steer (car stays in the lane for you on the highway)
- Auto Park (car parks itself)
- Auto lane change (car can automatically changes lanes on the highway with a flick of the turn signal stalk)
- Summon (have the car move forward or backwards to come to you, not yet available in the Model 3 AFAIK)

Right now, pre-paying for FSD gives you nothing. But when FSD is released, you will get an OTA update that will make your car full self-driving. You will be able to input almost any destination and the car will drive itself to that destination without any intervention on your part.

EAP gives you the following features:
- Traffic Aware Cruise Control (car maintains safe distance from car in front)
- Auto Steer (car stays in the lane for you on the highway)
- Auto Park (car parks itself)
- Auto lane change (car can automatically changes lanes on the highway with a flick of the turn signal stalk)
- Summon (have the car move forward or backwards to come to you, not yet available in the Model 3 AFAIK)

Right now, pre-paying for FSD gives you nothing. But when FSD is released, you will get an OTA update that will make your car full self-driving. You will be able to input almost any destination and the car will drive itself to that destination without any intervention on your part.

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Summon is the only missing EAP feature currently for Model 3? Thanks for the info!

EAP gives you the following features:
- Traffic Aware Cruise Control (car maintains safe distance from car in front)
- Auto Steer (car stays in the lane for you on the highway)
- Auto Park (car parks itself)
- Auto lane change (car can automatically changes lanes on the highway with a flick of the turn signal stalk)
- Summon (have the car move forward or backwards to come to you, not yet available in the Model 3 AFAIK)

Right now, pre-paying for FSD gives you nothing. But when FSD is released, you will get an OTA update that will make your car full self-driving. You will be able to input almost any destination and the car will drive itself to that destination without any intervention on your part.

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Eventuallly once EAP is fully released Auto lane change won’t require using the turn signal. Current state is you have to use this. Another feature promised is that it will take exits and transition from one freeway to another.

I bought FSD for my 3. Not because I think my car will ever drive itself, but I wanted access to the additional 4 cameras that the upgrade includes (8 active cameras vs 4 for EAP). I figure even if the car can’t drive itself, that will probably make for a rock solid Level 3 experience. Now, this is a gamble that they will eventually start activating more that the 2 cameras in use currently, but I figure we have to be getting close to that step over a year from AP2 being released.

Also, at some point people with leased 2016 cars might start asking for refunds on the $3K, so Tesla will need to start releasing some differentiating features to try and avoid that.

I am gambling that I won’t total my car in the meantime, and that the eventual feature release will be so worth the upgrade that Tesla raises the cost. I am also gambling that they won’t pull an AP2 style “hardware upgrade would require a spinal transplant” move so you should just buy a new car to get FSD. Tesla has done both unexpected price increases and hardware changes with no upgrade path in the past so I figure I have a 50/50 chance I will “win”.

I wanted access to the additional 4 cameras that the upgrade includes (8 active cameras vs 4 for EAP)

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So, to be clear, if you get EAP there are only 4 cameras “active?” I thought the hardware already included 8 cameras and they were all active (with the exception of the cabin facing camera in the rear view mirror)?

So, to be clear, if you get EAP there are only 4 cameras “active?” I thought the hardware already included 8 cameras and they were all active (with the exception of the cabin facing camera in the rear view mirror)?

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All the cameras are installed and fully functional on all cars. They aren't being used to generate commands, however.

At the moment, the computers are only using the front three on any AP2 car - until last month, it was only the two main front cameras, but the newly activated automatic rain sensing wipers use the front wide angle.

eAP will eventually use the two fender cameras to detect cars before moving between lanes.

FSD needs the B-Pillar cameras to check for other cars at intersections, and the front and rear wide angles for parking and tight space maneuvering.

Given that the center screen has always shown the rear wide angle and that the new rain sensing wipers use the front wide angle on all cars, with and without eAP and FSD, it's clear that there's some flexibility in the 4 cameras and 8 cameras language they used.

Here is the wording on the FSD option for the Model S. (This level of detail was not on the configurator for the 3, so I suppose it could be different, but I would guess we are buying the same software on the S, X or 3 when we pick this option):

So, to be clear, if you get EAP there are only 4 cameras “active?” I thought the hardware already included 8 cameras and they were all active (with the exception of the cabin facing camera in the rear view mirror)?

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The hardware includes all 8 cameras, but they are not all active. EAP only uses 4 active cameras, but FSD will use 8.

I bought FSD for my 3. Not because I think my car will ever drive itself, but I wanted access to the additional 4 cameras that the upgrade includes (8 active cameras vs 4 for EAP). I figure even if the car can’t drive itself, that will probably make for a rock solid Level 3 experience. Now, this is a gamble that they will eventually start activating more that the 2 cameras in use currently, but I figure we have to be getting close to that step over a year from AP2 being released.

Also, at some point people with leased 2016 cars might start asking for refunds on the $3K, so Tesla will need to start releasing some differentiating features to try and avoid that.

I am gambling that I won’t total my car in the meantime, and that the eventual feature release will be so worth the upgrade that Tesla raises the cost. I am also gambling that they won’t pull an AP2 style “hardware upgrade would require a spinal transplant” move so you should just buy a new car to get FSD. Tesla has done both unexpected price increases and hardware changes with no upgrade path in the past so I figure I have a 50/50 chance I will “win”.

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"FSD" option doesn't give you more access to cameras or change the way the car drives on AP.

There is no evidence that Tesla FSD exists even in Alpha at this point. Musk has a history of over promising, so take whatever he claims with a grain of salt.

If Tesla really did have something in Alpha, they'd be quick to host events showing it off and collecting preorders for it.

"FSD" option doesn't give you more access to cameras or change the way the car drives on AP.

There is no evidence that Tesla FSD exists even in Alpha at this point. Musk has a history of over promising, so take whatever he claims with a grain of salt.

If Tesla really did have something in Alpha, they'd be quick to host events showing it off and collecting preorders for it.

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If that ends up being the case, then I should be able to easily get my $3000 back. I think it’s more likely Tesla will release at least one differentiating feature for the FSD buyers, just so they won’t have to do mass refunds.

Musk over promises regularly, but he doesn’t usually promise complete vaporware, which is what you are implying.

1) Tesla is planning the FSD coast to coast demo in 3-6 months. Musk also said the neural net is solid and will learn exponentially. Both those statements taken together make me optimistic that they are close to getting FSD working. Now, I know that Tesla misses deadlines. After all, Musk said "3-6 months" for AP2 to diverge from AP1 and we all know how that panned out. So, yes, it is possible that the FSD demo will get pushed back again. But even if they do miss the 6 month deadline to do the demo, I think they are pretty close now to getting FSD working. I definitely don't think FSD is decades away as the skeptics claim.

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A coast to coast drive is basically the easiest thing you can do in terms of self driving.

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